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Assistive technology consists of any item or piece of equipment that helps a person with a disability increase, maintain, or improve  the capabilities of a student. These technologies can be high-tech (tablets) or low-tech (pencil grip).

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There are many low-tech options to assist students in organization.  These are often beneficial when you school lacks the resources for more high-tech options.

word walls

sticky noted

to-do lists

daily planners and organizers

paper calendars

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Students with ADHD often struggle with organization. These student can use a tablet, such as an ipad, to stay organized. These can be especially useful for students with ADHD. Tablets have access to apps that will help a student

Keep to-do list on an app like Google Tasks or TickTick.

Track assignments on a calendar

Keep a daily or weekly plan on apps like Routines or Habitify.

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Assistive Technology as it stands today is not relegated simply to helping students with physical disabilities (e.g wheelchairs, lifts, automatic doors etc) or sensory disabilities (e.g hearing aids, text to voice, voice to text etc). It can also be used to help students with emotional disorders, anxiety, and who are prone to emotional dysregulation.

In this section, three examples of AT that can help students regulate their emotional states and encourage appropriate responses will be outlined.

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Social Stories is an app that is designed to help students by modelling appropriate responses and social interactions across a range of settings, contexts and situations. It provides a multitude of realistic scenarios - stories - that students can relate to, and helps guide and train them on how they could deal with these scenarios in a socially appropriate manner. It will also guide them on how to do so while minimising their own negative thoughts or behaviours.

Social stories is available on Android/iOS devices (various smartphones), and has a regular website accessible via any internet capable device. There are also tools available for parents, teachers or others to design their own "social stories" for use in the app.

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Calm talk is an app for iPhone and iPad which is designed to assist students who have difficulty expressing their emotions.

Calm Talk will help students clarify and become aware of their own emotions, as well as help them identify why they feel the way they do.

It also has features designed to help calm a student when they are distressed. For example, drawing on research that the sound of water is calming to children's sensory systems, it provides a "water timer". According to Calm Talk:

The water timer can be used:
• To help children wait for their turn
• To calm down after a tantrum or meltdown
• As a stress management tool, children practise deep breathing as they watch the water rise.
• To practice focus and attention skills
• To prepare children for a new activity to begin, or an activity to end. " When the water reaches the top, it's time to stop watching television.”

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Breathe2Relax is an app designed to teach a special breathing technique called "diaphragmatic breathing" or belly breathing, which helps people feel more relaxed. It is used in a variety of contexts including helping people with anxiety, PTSD, and as a tool on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Breathe2Relax is designed to guide users through a series of guided practice sessions, and users need to reflect on their levels of stress before and after use - data which can then be graphed over time to measure progress.

The app is available on iOS, Android and Google.

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I chose this topic area because it was the one I knew least about, and also the one I felt had the greatest potential to assist particular students in my current context.

Where I teach, I have no students with physical disabilities or any serious sensory issues. What I do have are students who get easily emotionally dysregulated. I also have students who have difficulty getting organised, following routines, and poor executive function, so both self regulation and the organisation section by Jeff are the ones most immediately applicable to me.

I also want to be ready to deal with whatever comes my way in future, and the potential for future students of mine to have issues with vision, hearing, or in other areas, so this padlet will be a useful quick reference going forward.

The particular AT that stood out to me was Social Stories. I've been pondering a lot lately how I can help a particular high functioning autistic student of mine learn more socially appropriate behaviour, and I think this app has the potential to help him learn new strategies for how to conduct himself.

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Watches like this can help students that lose focus easily and have trouble keeping track of time.

They can be set to periodically vibrate which can remind the student to refocus. They can also be used to set alarms that help student keep track of time during lessons.

https://watchminder.com/ offers one relatively inexpensive option in the category.

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Assistive technology includes any device that aids in a student's learning. Although they should not give students an unfair advantage, they do provide visually impaired students with the least restrictive environment to promote independence and academic progression. Let's take a look at some of the resources available.

Low Tech Aids

For students who need larger print or improved lighting, many low tech aids can be helpful, including:

Large print books, calendars, worksheets, vocabulary cards, and so on

Markers with various size tips for writing larger fonts on white boards and paper

Nite writer pens with built-in lights for illuminating study material

Thick-line paper and raised-line paper for tactile cues

An abacus for teaching basic math computation skills

Variable intensity study lamps for illuminating material more effectively

Colored transparency or acetate film over text to provide less page glare

Full page writing guides placed over paper to help stay within the writing space.

Magnifiers, handheld can enlarge texts.

Audio Books allows the student to hear the written word.

Screen readers and text to speech devices changes the written word to audio.

Tactile Keyboarding helps students with visual impairments learn touch typing allowing them to use a regular keyboard for navigating a computer or laptop with the aid of screen enlargement or a screen reader.

Portable Note Takers are carry-along and use either Braille or Qwerty keyboards and are generally the size of a book for easy transport. The student can use portable note takers to read books in Braille, write class assignments, and record lectures.

iOS Devices are limitless devices for students with visual impairments.

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I chose this topic because in my previous and current position, I have had students that used some of these devices to accommodate them in the learning environment.

I teach at a Special Education Behavior School and the students have both. I see first-hand learning disabilities and behavior issues. Most of the student have Behavior Intervention Plans in place to help with their behaviors.

The visual technology that stood out the most was the tactile keyboarding. It allowed this student to learn touch typing and allowed him to use a regular keyboard which navigated a computer or laptop with the aid of screen enlargement or a screen reader. This worked very well for Amadi, who is legally blind.

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Vee offered several great example of low-tech assistive technology. I've often encountered situations where my school was unwilling (or unable) to pay for a piece of costly, high-tech assistive technology.

Andrew's Social Stories app was very interesting. I've had students in the past that struggle with appropriate responses in social situation. These students also tended to be very technology oriented. I think an app like this would have been very useful in modeling and reinforcing appropriate behaviors.

Something like watchminder  would have also been useful for some of my students. Students that easily get off task are often sensitive to being corrected too often by adults. A watch like this would have been very useful in reminding them to stay on task while also avoiding conflict.

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A learning disability is a disorder that affects the manner in which individuals with normal or often above average intelligence acquire, retain, and express information. There are many types of different learning disabilities. Some common ones include: Dyscalculia, ADHD, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, etc. One common disability that I seen in my classroom is ADHD. An assistive technology tool I believe could better support a student with ADHD  in my Algebra 1 class is a talking calculator, a tablet (electronic math worksheet), and a vibrating watch.
- A talking calculator could help them process the digits they see in a math problem more easily and give them confidence that they're pushing the correct calculator keys as they solve the problem.
- A tablet (electronic math worksheet) lets a student with ADHD work out math problems on a computer screen which can help them organize numbers as they solve the problem and it can read the numbers aloud to them. This can also assist with students who have issues with note taking.
- A vibrating watch because students with ADHD tend to lose focus and be off task. A vibrating watch can assist with refocusing the student back on task if attention drifts. The quietness of the watch can help the student from feeling self-conscious and the teacher does not have to redirect as much.

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As I read through these, I liked the assistive technology Jeff used for organization which is an ipad. I have ELL students in class who use an ipad to help translate language. However, I do believe some students with disabilities may benefit from a ipad as long as they are not able to access anything else on it because I already see my ELL students using the ipad as a distraction in class.
Another assistive technology I liked was the calm talk app. I have students who struggle with expressing their emotions and I believe this would be a good tool but assist with that.
Lastly, one low tech that is not on here but students would benefit from is seat cushions. I have many students with sensory processing and attention issues that I believe a seat cushion can provide enough movement and stimulation to help a child focus without constantly standing up in class.

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Assistive Technology is the use of any device or software that improves the experience of learning or daily life.   There are a variety of Audio supports available for students in the classroom that benefit multiple deficits and disabilities.  A few examples include:

text to speech software- there are a variety of programs and apps that provide text to speech technology.  An example being Speechify, a text to speech software available on most computers, phones, tablets, and other smart devices.  It allows the user to capture any text and translates it to an audio format.  This software can benefit students with ADHD and dyslexia.

AAC (Augmented Assistive Communication) Devices assist students with communication disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, to communicate through a smart device such as an i pad.  The devices transcribe text, or pictures depicting text, as speech allowing the student to communicate.

The seeing AI App available from Microsoft is designed for the low-vision community and offers audio guidance in a large variety of situations. It reads text aloud as soon as it appears in a smartphone’s camera viewfinder. It also identifies products by barcode when shopping and describes surrounding scenery and its colors. Over time, it learns to recognize the user’s friends and describe their facial expressions.

Personal Listening Devices or PLDs help students with hearing impairments and Auditory Processing Disorders hear teachers more clearly.  The teacher wears a clip-on microphone that is directly connected to the student's personal listening device.

Audio recorders are used to record teaching lectures or lessons for the student to use later when studying or to take notes at a later time.  This benefits students with ADHD or writing difficulties.

Tobii Technology offers eye-tracking devices that turn the human gaze into a hands-free mouse. To use the technology, students with limited motor skills and verbal difficulties simply need to look at their screen, and a mix of infrared projectors, cameras and machine-learning algorithms will detect their point of focus. With text to speech capabilities this allows students that typically would have very limited communication capabilities to communicate effectively with others, and capabilities to excel and learn in areas that would have previously been inaccessible to them.

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Assistive Technologies can be imperative in a special education classroom.   In my classroom currently we utilize two technologies that I listed: AAC devices and Tobii Technology.   I work with students with a variety of communication disorders.  AAC devices have proven very effective with assisting these students with accessing the learning environment as well as communicating basic wants and needs.  I hope in the future to be able to further develop communication skills with my students utilizing their devices.  I also have a student at my school that has multiple disabilities with very limited mobility and zero speech. He uses a Tobii device to communicate and to better access the learning environment.  He uses it to answer multiple choice and yes/no questions.  Without this technology his ability to express his knowledge would be very limited.    From looking at all technologies on our padlet I would like to try social stories app with my students.  I utilize a paper format of social stories that are developed depending on each students need.  I utilize social stories in my classroom in order to help my students self-regulate and also learn about their bodies, their environment, their emotions, and other facets of daily living.  I am curious about an app that would allow me to access a large variety of stories quickly and deliver them to my students in multiple ways.